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Monday, September 12, 2005

Letter to Carmel

Carmel Tebbutt, the Labor Candidate for Marrickville, left us a card under our door yesterday when she came around to talk to residents about this Saturday's By-election. Unfortunately my girlfriend and I missed our opportunity to let Carmel know our opinions so I wrote her a letter. I should note that referring to "home ownership", "local business involvement" and "community participation" is strategic to add political weight to the letter and does not reflect a notion of citizenship that I hold and judge others by.

Dear Carmel,

As I missed your visit to my house yesterday, I would like to give yousome feedback about my vote this Saturday. I have been living in theinner west for over 10 years. As a long term resident and nowhomeowner of this area, I am committed to maintaining and developingthis diverse and vibrant community. In addition to having beeninvolved in a range of community activities, I started and ran my ownIT business in the innerwest which employed over a dozen people. I nowown my own house in Newtown with my partner and we are active membersof the community and know many local residents.

I will not be voting for you Carmel and I would like you know myreasons. Furthermore, I have urged all voters in the Marrickvilleelectorate that I know to consider your poor record on being "Caringand Committed" before giving their vote to you.

The main reason I will not be voting for you is because you let allAustralian gays and lesbians down when, as current Minister ofEducation and Training Minister, you banned an education resource aspart of a sex education program that promoted tolerance to gays andlesbians after "The Daily Telegraph" published a story of one parentcomplaining to the school about the program. Your reaction was to banthe material and claimed "it was inappropriate."

You have made it clear by your actions that your policies, ostensiblypromoting a government that is "Caring & Committed", does not extendto promoting social tolerance and understanding to gays and lesbians.Far from reducing the level of homophobia in our society, your actionshave reinforced it. The Inner west deserves to be represented by aleader who is prepared to stand up and be proud of the contributionsof its gay and lesbian constituents.

I have been a long term supporter of Labor in the local area but forthis reason I will not be giving Labor my vote in the upcomingBy-election.

2 comments:

Ta Mac. I do get worked up about local issues. I'm also campaigning to save a tree on our street from being cut down. It is perfectly healthy but the council has been concerned about liability since it is a type of tree that they are no longer planting and is "slightly" more likely to drop branches than other types of trees (not that any branches have dropped). It is a beautiful, majestic and towering gum tree that supports considerable bird and other wild life. I guess it is the immediacy of the local that gives it its power (I walk past this tree daily) and I feel I have more chance to shape local events through participation. It makes an interesting question since on the one hand the Internet makes distance less of an obstacle but geography seems to still play quite a big role in how and in what capacity people will become involved in social action.